Best Practices in the Field of Early Education and Care

How to foster learning using the walls of your classroom

Quick…what color is the ceiling? Did you have to peek? It’s ok if you did, I did too. It’s not something we look at on a regular basis because it’s not at our eye level. Did you know that grocery stores often put the lower-priced items on the top and bottom shelves, and the higher-priced items at our eye level? Now, imagine yourself as a child in a classroom, maybe your own classroom. What is at your level and what is high above your head? Where are the pictures you’ve drawn and the stories you’ve written? Where are the classroom guidelines and schedule posted?

When you set up your classroom environment, you should take a page from the supermarkets. Put what you want the children to see at their eye level. This includes their artwork, pictures from projects and field trips or the class pet. Whatever you display, it should be purposeful; try not to put up maps of the United States or posters of shapes and colors if you won’t use them as teaching tools. In an article for NAEYC by Patricia Tarr, she states that “the challenge for early childhood educators is to think beyond decorating to consider how walls can be used effectively as part of an educational environment.” I was observing a staff recently who guided the children through a display depicting flower growth by comparing it to actual flowers they had in the classroom. It gave purpose to the display and made it a more concrete experience.

Teachers should also display classroom guidelines and schedule at the children’s eye level. Try to limit the number of guidelines to 3-5, phrase your expectations simply and with positive language (replace “no running” with “walking feet” or “do not talk back” with “listen to the teacher”) and accompany them with pictures. If you can get pictures of the children in your classroom doing those things, even better! Depending on the age of the children in your classroom, the schedule you post may be pictorial or it could use words. Children thrive when they know what to expect.

Here are some questions from Patricia Tarr’s article to help you reflect on your environment:

-How can the walls reflect the lives, families, cultures and interests of the learners within?

-Do the posters invite participation and active involvement or passive reception of information?

-What are the assumptions about how children learn and how are these reflected by the classroom walls?

-What is the atmosphere of the classroom? How do the materials on display contribute to the atmosphere?

I’d love to hear about displays you’ve done in your classroom and the children’s responses. Please share in the comments!